


seafarers of the modern age

by samssalvation



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Surfers, M/M, Surfer AU, aka back when my children were all alive and (relatively?) happy, and of course they all surf because why not, billy doesn't trust him, don't question why billy's always shirtless it's just Necessary, max is silver's only damn friend because he's a loser, more s2 dynamics/characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-23
Updated: 2017-04-23
Packaged: 2018-10-14 23:58:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10546548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samssalvation/pseuds/samssalvation
Summary: john can't surf, but he's damn well going to learn. even if he has to drag the elusive "captain" flint into the waves himself.[rating is t for now, but it probably won't stay that way]





	

**Author's Note:**

> just an idea i've been playing around with, not sure if i'll finish it but here it is anyways

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> john arrives in la morsa beach. no one really likes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick thing: i've never written for this pairing before

John Silver didn’t know much about surfing.

Then again, he didn’t know much about cooking either, but that didn't stop him from driving down to California to help open a restaurant. Anyone with a modicum of common sense would have told him he was making a mistake. It wasn't an unusual criticism for John. He never felt like explaining to them that he was also the kind of person who excelled at making bad decisions and coming out the other side a little bit better off than he’d been going in.

It couldn’t have come at a better time. His lies had been starting to catch up with him in a bad way, and he was looking for any excuse to get out of town. When he’d gotten a call from an old friend who needed a money-man for a new business, it felt like a sign from God. The day after the idea was pitched to him, he was packing up his car and speeding down the coast.

Admittedly, this was a poor idea. First and foremost, he didn’t own a single map and was really just relying on “south” as a direction. Second of all, he hadn’t considered how long it would take. Including traffic, stoplights, and more missed turns than anyone with a brain could abide, it turned out to be a drive of around twenty-one hours. This didn’t include sleep or meals either, so instead of turning up in La Morsa Beach by Monday like he’d promised, he instead found himself pulling out of a cheap motel early Wednesday morning to finish the last leg of the journey with the cheery optimism of someone who was really excited to stop fucking driving in the near future.

It was just edging past noon when he saw the sign for La Morsa, and about thirty minutes after that when he finally pulled up to his destination: a low, wooden building bordered by a cracked parking lot to one side.

It took less than ten seconds for someone to slap him.

He was closing the car door when someone marched up beside him; he barely had the time to turn around before a small palm connected with his cheek. Reeling back, his hand came up instinctively to cup his jaw, before he heard his attacker say in accented English, “You’re late, Silver.”

His eyes finally focused on the petite woman standing on the sandy pavement before him. She wore a long white cotton skirt and an orange crop top, which were separated by a thin strip of tawny brown skin. For some reason, the attire screamed ‘California’; if he hadn’t been certain he’d made it before, he didn’t doubt it now. She pinned him with an austere look, to which he responded with a sunny smile. It faded when she raised her sculpted brows, awaiting an explanation.

“I took the scenic route,” he said, hoping his buoyant tone would defer any further prying into his impromptu road trip. “I thought it would be a shame to miss out on the opportunity.”

“Would you be speaking of the opportunity to drive me crazy, _peut-être_?” she challenged. Her tone wavered ever so slightly - it made John reconsider the motive behind the slap, which might have been closer to worry than anger. “You did not return a single one of my calls.”

“Well, yes, that was part of the scenic route. It was actually more of a journey of self-discovery, now that I’m thinking about it,” he replied, noting the way her eyes narrowed. She had an excellent bullshit detector, so he ended his statement there. No need to trouble her with the fact that he’d actually abandoned his phone after his (now ex) boss had called demanding his immediate return to fix his mistakes.

She eyed him a moment longer before she let her irritation drop with a perfunctory, “Well. We have much to do.”

She was about to turn away, but she hesitated before stepping in close and giving John a tight and unexpected hug. Quietly but with feeling, she said, “It is good to see you again.”

John felt a smile creep onto his face before he could stop it. “Good to see you too, Max.”

A moment later, Max stepped out of his arms and walked away without looking back. She did, however, wave her hand above her head as if to beckon him along. “Get your shit and follow me.”

She disappeared around the corner of the building.

Now that she was gone, John actually had the time to take in his surroundings, including the very building she’d vanished behind. Upon second inspection, the long faded boards that made up the wall actually had gaps between them where John could peek through into what looked to be a storage room. A sliver of worry worked its way under his breastbone, but he forced it out before it could get very deep. It probably looked better on the inside, he reasoned, completely ignoring the cedar-tiled roof that looked like it was about to collapse towards the middle. Besides, he’d driven four days to get here and he wasn’t exactly in a position to turn back now.

He glanced at the small trinkets shop that shared the parking lot with the restaurant. Necklaces weighted down with beads and shells hung in the front window, next to key chains and sheer scarfs patterned with waves and sand. It narrowly avoided being kitschy, but it made his hopes sink a little lower all the same.

Driving down, he’d taken a Google-designed and fairly convoluted path through town, which had concluded with him coming up by the back way. This meant he hadn’t actually seen the front of the building yet, or the beach that was “a stone’s throw away by Billy’s arm” according to Max, a comparison which meant nothing to him. She’d told him that the only reason she’d managed to snag the property at all was because she knew someone with connections, so he imagined it must be fairly close. He could smell it, at least, and the sound of passing cars that carried on the air was supplemented by the roar of the tide.

He gave the parking lot one last appraisal before he got his trunk open and unloaded his one suitcase, and started towards the front.

When he rounded the corner, he peered down the street, squinting through the midday sun, and saw clear sky and the telltale shifting blue of the ocean. It couldn’t be more than a mile away. In eighth grade, he’d sprinted a mile in seven minutes. He could be on a California beach in seven minutes.

Well, seven minutes if he was being optimistic.

His smile came rushing back. No matter what this place looked like, it was a million miles away from Seattle, and that was enough for him. He sucked in the salty air and thought it smelled just like another opportunity on the horizon. Hoisting his suitcase, he took the three creaky steps up to the front door and ducked inside.

The interior was dim, which meant at first glance John couldn’t see jack. He heard Max’s voice in hushed undertones somewhere to his right, and another woman responding in kind. Unwittingly, he stumbled and nearly fell when he walked into what felt like a chair. Their conversation cut off as John blinked madly, the dark spots finally clearing from his vision to reveal a modest but minimally decorated dining room. Windows spanned the wall on his left, and the front of the building, and they were all firmly closed to keep the cool air trapped inside. White plastic blinds obscured the view of the street. Fans beat at the air slowly overhead, creating a quiet background whir.

“Don’t break anything,” Max teased, prompting John to turn. She stood in front of a long bar that looked to be made of the same wood that made up the walls, if that wood had been polished and maintained. The woman she’d been speaking to stood on the opposite side of said bar, buxom with long brown hair and a take-no-shit expression. John imagined they probably wouldn’t like each other if they spent too much time alone together, based solely on the fact that he talked a lot of shit.

He headed over to them and set his suitcase by his feet. “I’ll try my hardest.”

Max motioned at her colleague with her head. “This is Idelle. She runs the kitchen.”

John stuck out his hand, which Idelle glanced at briefly before bringing her eyes to his and bluntly saying, “You’re late.”

“Yes, we covered that,” he replied, just as Max made a shushing noise to his left.

Idelle didn’t seem fazed. She looked at her boss. “We’re opening in three days. I have a right to demand answers.”

“Scenic route,” said John and Max in unison. He side-eyed her when he realized they had, then cleared his throat and peeked over his shoulder at the restaurant once more. “Tell me, are we redecorating before we open?”

“Relax, _mon cher_ ,” Max said, tapping one of the papers spread out before Idelle. It looked to be some form of electronic receipt. “We have deliveries coming in. The sign is going up tomorrow. We will be ready.”

John leaned back against the counter and surveyed the room at large, contemplating the future there. With Max there to keep him at least somewhat more true than he’d been at his last job, he might actually have a chance of surviving here. At that thought, he paused; he didn’t actually know what _here_ was. He glanced at his friend, who seemed to be already anticipating a question. “Did you decide on a name?”

“Bourbon Street.” She said it the French way, the “r” sound coming off the back of her tongue and the second syllable falling off before hitting the “n”. She tilted her head at him, awaiting his reaction.  
Their conversation over the phone had been sparse. Beyond the exchange of pleasantries, quick summaries of the five years since they’d last seen each other, and the bare details of the venture (namely, that she was opening a restaurant, and she was doing it in La Morsa), John actually hadn’t taken the time to ask for more. Now that he was standing in the restaurant itself, it seemed imperative that he learn the rest as soon as possible.

He hesitated, knowing even before he asked that Idelle would scoff. A slight wince on his face, he slowly asked, “While we’re on the subject . . . what kind of restaurant is this?”

Sure enough, Idelle tossed her head back, making a derisive noise. Max disregarded her associate’s show. “Cajun.”

John pulled up short. “Cajun. As in Louisiana Cajun.”

“Precisely.”

He blinked a few times in quick succession, momentarily at a loss. “Is Cajun cuisine particularly popular in southern California?”

Max shrugged delicately, turning her gaze to the street. She appeared to be utterly unconcerned. “We shall see.”

John recovered quickly from his surprise, running the new information over in his mind to try and determine why it had thrown him as much as it had. He supposed he’d just expected something more . . . dependable. Then again, he knew little about restaurants or what was “dependable” - he pictured burgers and build-your-own single-serve pizzas - and reasoned that many businesses collapsed for just not standing out among the competition. If he had to hazard a guess, he’d say that Bourbon Street was probably the only Cajun restaurant in town. It would certainly stand out.

After giving John a second to think, Max moved onto a different subject. Rattling off a list she had clearly prepared long in advance, she said, “You will run the numbers for weekly non-food supplies, wages, repairs, cleaning costs, profits, and anything else that comes up that doesn’t fall under the kitchen’s budget. You will have to work with Idelle on that. As well as doing our books, I expect you to take shifts waiting tables and working at the bar.”

He must have looked dubious, because her brows lowered. “Don’t make me regret calling you.”

“I’m sure you’ll get there eventually,” he replied jokingly. When her expression didn’t lighten, he dropped the jovial tone and said, “Max, this is the only thing I’ve got going for me. Do you really think I’d throw it away?”

“I wanted to make certain you developed some more common sense since last we met,” she answered, the softening of her voice making it sound like an inside joke. John hadn’t been in on an inside joke in a long time; he liked the feeling.

He still couldn’t resist asking, “If you fired me, who would manage your funds?”

The answer seemed to annoy her. She pursed her lips. “Vane’s man.”

John had enough sense not to push it for the time being. He figured that he would get the lay of the land soon, and could probably answer his budding queries on his own within a few weeks: namely, who was Vane, and why did he have a “man.”

He felt a tug on his hair and whirled to see Idelle with her hand outstretched. Before he could say anything, she informed him, “You’ll have to keep this tied back when you’re working. Or cut it.”

Her tone implied that cutting it was her preferred choice, which meant that John had to keep it long just to spite her. His hand rose to his hair, feeling where it had come out of its arrangement. He had driven with the windows down, savoring the feeling of the wind on his face. He hadn’t been as appreciative of how it blew his hair around. His car didn’t have working AC, so in lieu of cutting off his one source of cool air, he’d used some agile maneuvering with his knees to steer while he quickly tied his hair, still damp from his morning shower, in a half-bun behind his head. It was now coming down, its ends brushing his shoulders.

He tugged the elastic out entirely and gave her a broad, close-lipped smile. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

Idelle narrowed her eyes at him, but Max interrupted her reply with a quick, diffusing, “Go wait for the delivery truck. It should be here soon, and the last one tried to back into the rear door because they thought it was a loading dock and nearly tore down the wall.”

The woman scooped up her receipts into a pile and deposited them into Max’s waiting hands, then slipped through the swinging door behind the opposite end of the bar. As the door slowly brought itself to rest, John faced Max again and let out a long breath. “Is she always like that?”

“You’re not her type.”

“Oh really? And what’s that?”

“Honest.” Max’s eyes flashed with laughter, the shift emphasized by the dark kohl smudged around them. John absorbed the blow with an exaggerated expression of betrayal, but didn’t say anything to refute it. Then, as if she had suddenly remembered, she walked around the bar and rooted around beneath it for a minute, accompanied by various clattering and clinking sounds.

A moment later, she set a small metal name tag on the counter-top and pushed it towards him. She watched him closely as he picked it up, fingers running over the engraved surface that spelled his name in thin all-caps lettering.

After a second, his gaze flicked up to hers. She didn’t usually show her excitement, but John could see a little bit of it slip through, sparkling behind her eyes. “Well? What do you think?”

He worked fast to hide his genuine gratitude with something they could both handle. “It’s great. A little optimistic of you.”

“Consider it an investment,” she said pointedly, marked by an undercurrent of _don’t fuck this up_.

It wasn’t in John’s nature to make promises to that end. John fucked up a lot. But he also picked himself up a lot, too. So far, he’d done the latter more times than the former. He was an opportunist at heart, and even though Max was an old friend, he couldn’t say he wouldn’t drive another four days to something bigger and better. For her sake, he hoped that wouldn’t happen. She was one of a precious few whom he had managed to keep in contact with no matter where his jobs took him, making her one of his only friends.

Max cleared her throat, and John snapped out of his thoughts, vaguely aware that she had said something while he was mulling things over. “Come again?”

“I’m not paying you to stand around. Come,” she instructed him, before opening the door behind her and leaving it ajar for him to follow. She had a habit of doing that; John imagined people followed her a lot. She was very persuasive.

He sucked in a breath, then lifted his suitcase and went after her.

===

By Saturday evening, the restaurant was almost unrecognizable.

After a day spent going over accounts out in the baking sun while painters rendered the interior of the building impossible, John helped Max and Idelle hang a collection of glossy black and white framed photographs of beaches and boulders, which he found out about five minutes into the process were Idelle’s own work. He made sure to compliment them in the extreme whenever he finished hanging one - “Utter perfection! And so fitting for this corner by the bar!” - until Max reassigned him to unpacking the new silverware and running it through the sanitizer in the kitchen. Even with his voice muffled by the swinging doors, his puns based on the grace of his own name - “That _Silver_ certainly is sharp,” when dealing with the knives - eventually drove Max to shove him back outside the moment he’d put the last lobster fork away in its drawer.

He was tasked with supervising the hanging of the sign, which even John had to admit turned out better than anyone could have hoped. Hanging it was a bit of a pain given the state of the roof, but eventually they managed to prop it up and secure it with minimal threat to the safety of those inside. When John finally stepped back to take it in, he was impressed; the wood background for the sign, which had been beaten to give the appearance of driftwood, was painted with simple black cursive, into which almost two hundred round, incandescent bulbs had been set. John thought they might live to regret the bulbs, but the workmen had promised that it was easy to stopper up the sockets if they ever wanted to take the bulbs out and the sign would still look decent without them. It was a problem John would leave for later, or leave for when he wasn’t there anymore, whichever came first.

The rest of his time was consumed with sorting out the finances, starting with the bank account and working his way along from there. While Idelle prepped her new hires in the kitchen, a training which John was privy to based on the sound of her voice filtering through the wall into the small office next to it, he worked up a budget assuming minimal earnings and complete debt repayment in four months. This was actually a somewhat reasonable goal, since the kitchen supplies had come with the building itself and they’d only really stepped out of pocket for new coats of varnish on the tables, paint on the walls, and the sign. The other paraphernalia required for the running of a restaurant, like the plates and the silverware John had so enjoyed unpacking, had been paid for by the same mysterious “connection” that Max had mentioned before who’d gotten them the building to start.

John had been far too busy to look into it further, though he’d heard the name Guthrie tossed around from time to time. Once he’d gotten everything sorted for the opening, however, he took the time to give the matter more thought. Unless this “Guthrie” individual had the Midas touch, he didn’t like the thought of taking money from them without any set schedule for repayment. It wasn’t an issue of morals - John had been told he lacked those on more than one occasion, though it was easy for people to mistake self-preservation for immorality - but rather one of owing and being owed. The prospect of someone holding these debts over their heads at any point in the future loomed at the edge of his plans, an unknown that he could not factor out.

It didn’t sit well with him, but Max was busy with preparations and showing around the new staff, and Idelle would tell him to stay in his lane if he attempted to broach the topic with her, so he was left to simmer in silence while running other profit margins angrily on the ancient Excel on the office computer. The only thing that itched more than the identity of their mysterious benefactor was that Max had politely asked (see: _ordered_ ) him to clean up his appearance, which included shaving off any and all facial hair excluding his eyebrows. It hadn’t been wholly unexpected, but he didn’t like the look of smug satisfaction Idelle had when he walked in Saturday morning feeling like he’d just stepped off the bus from junior high.

Clean-shaven and wearing the required black top, he joined Max and Idelle in front of the gathering of staff ten minutes before their grand opening. He had already been briefed in what he’d be doing around the restaurant that evening, and for the near future: running the bar. He’d forgotten just how long Max had known him; they’d met back when he tended a local bar, in some city or another. They all blurred together for John in retrospect, though he was fairly certain it had been New York.

Either way, she’d seen using his “built-in” bartending capabilities as far easier than hiring someone else. It was John’s luck that it made more financial sense too. He felt a little too old to be a waiter, as though there was some sort of age limit for the position; perhaps it was a remnant of youthful dreams of grandeur by the time he hit thirty (dreams he hadn’t achieved). There was also the fact that all the other staff members were women - all beautiful, beguiling women, to do them credit, but John would be out of place all the same. At least when he was standing behind the bar he was set apart, and hopefully didn’t stick out as much.

Max was speaking about using their natural talents to nudge customers towards the more expensive options, while a few of the girls adjusted and preened with the same intensity that warriors prepared for battle. When Max seemed like she was about to bring her speech to an end, he subtly elbowed her to remind her to mention the rules about tips - he didn’t want his books to be a mess after a single day.

“Be ready, _mes chéries_ ,” Max concluded, glancing at the front windows. The blinds had been pulled, but the silhouettes of people milling about gave John an approximate headcount that gave him a boost of confidence.

He moved around the back of the bar as Max went to the doors. With a flourish, she pulled them open, and the waitresses flocked to Max’s side as she personally paired off each group of customers with one. John watched from afar as she came alive, like an actress walking onto a stage, just as Idelle slunk around behind him towards the kitchen to go back to her entrees. He felt a light tap on his shoulder as she went, along with a quiet, “ _Bon chance_ ,” in a flat English accent (either to mock or emulate Max, he didn’t know, though he imagined it was something in between). Surprised, but not letting it show, he said in an undertone, “Same to you.”

He wasn’t sure she heard him, but he didn’t have time to check, because the tables had already filled up and people were turning up to the bar. He washed his hands, slapped on a winning smile, and quickly got to work.

After the initial rush, the atmosphere within the restaurant calmed a little. The thrum of conversations filled the air, but wasn’t uncomfortably loud, so John didn’t have to raise his voice to speak to customers. Apart from the people sitting at the bar, he also had near constant work helping the waitresses with the card machines, which apparently hadn’t had their batteries replaced before they’d started using them, leaving half of them with dead ones.

None of the customers really made an impression on John until the clock neared seven. This was when a large group of men, scruffy and tan and loud, appeared at the door and all exclaimed “Max!” almost in unison upon seeing her at the hostess stand. John could see her grin from where he stood, and though he couldn’t hear the rest of their conversation, she seemed to be greeting them by name. Eventually they were sent off with one of the girls and they moved off, rounded up by a shirtless man, who stood at least a head taller than anyone else in the restaurant and was obviously well aware of the fact. John would have kept looking, but just then a man at the bar knocked his beer with his elbow and John had to clean up the mess.

He’d served a few more people by the time Tall and Shirtless appeared again. He turned up between one blink and the next, as John was cleaning out a shaker, leaning over and resting his forearms against the bar. Beaded necklaces and string carrying ocean-tossed shells hung from his neck. That, oddly, was what struck John first, rather than the sheer sculpted mass of him. That was, however, where his eyes traveled next; if the bar hadn't hidden his lower half, John imagined his eyes would have kept going, appreciative and somewhat awestruck with the view.

“You alright?” the man said, raising his brows, just as John realized he’d been staring.

He snatched a dry towel from the rod under the bar and dried his hands as a pretense for his distraction. “Busy first night.”

“It looks good,” he said without much inflection. He glanced back at his table, where the men were talking loudly on the opposite side of the restaurant, then turned back with renewed purpose. “Our waitress seemed a little overwhelmed so I said I’d get our drinks myself.”

John did a prompt headcount. “Twelve beers?”

“Wish it were that easy.” He rubbed a hand over his hair, shorn close to the scalp, then ordered without pause, “A strawberry daiquiri, two Bloody Marys, a margarita, and beers for the rest.”

John narrowed his eyes and looked back at the table, trying to figure out which one of the men - who looked like a bunch of sailors just returned from sea - had ordered the fucking daiquiri, before returning his gaze to Tall and Shirtless and asking, “What about you?”

“Nothing for me,” he said, his attention already moving on to something beyond John (perhaps the “utterly perfect” photograph he’d hung a day ago). John watched him for a second longer before he put to, trying to get everything started at once to save time.

In the interest of being a good host, he moved back to the man once he started shaking and jokingly said, “You’re not very interested in the notion of shirts, are you?”

The man fixed him with a pair of stormy eyes that made John’s attempt at humor fall flat. Straightening, the man said, “Does it make you uncomfortable?”

His tone made it sound like it wasn’t even a question. John actively kept his eyes from roving and snorted, the only response he could manage after being thrown, then said at length, “Is that why you do it?”

“Uncomfortable people don’t lie,” he replied. His focus was unerring, as though he was waiting for a specific reaction from him; John found himself looking back down to the drink he was preparing.

He cleared his throat and poured the drinks. “Interesting theory.”

The man gave him a look that made John think he’d just played into his trap, but he accepted the drinks when John handed them to him without comment. Lifting them on their tray with a steady hand, he said, “I’ll be back for the beers.”

With that, he walked off. John had a strange feeling that his heart had just been pulled out of his chest, examined under a microscope, then put back, all figured out. He was about to start cleaning out the shakers when suddenly Max was by his side, the need for a hostess constantly on duty diminishing as the night wore on. She followed his gaze to Tall and Shirtless, who was passing out the drinks like a babysitter doling out ice cream to the most patient children first. John tried to see who he gave the daiquiri to, but Max pulled on his sleeve, drawing his attention to her.

“Did Billy give you any trouble?”

John scoffed. “Hardly. I don’t think he liked me, but I handled it.”

“Handled it?” Max flashed him a knowing look. “You tried to charm him, didn’t you.”

“Tried? I think you mean _succeeded_ ,” he protested, then cleared his throat and glanced away. “I don’t understand it. Is it my hair? My stunning good looks? I know they can throw people off.”

“I might have told him too much about you. Billy values loyalty a great deal, and some of your adventures can sound a little light in that respect. He might have taken my stories of you the wrong way,” Max replied, as though this information would make John feel better. “I think it was Milwaukee that did it.”

John barked a laugh, remembering the long-winded scheme that had ended with becoming the head mechanic of a modest repairs shop without having changed a tire in his life. Max had worked with him briefly as a secretary before he got found out and they’d both moved on. “If you told him about Milwaukee, I’m surprised he’s even talking to me.”

Max only smiled, before her gaze caught on something in the restaurant; Billy was coming back to the bar. Just before she slid away from John, she murmured, “If you wish to build bridges, you might consider discussing surfing.”

She was gone before he could tell her the flaw with her plan. Billy pressed up against the bar again and nodded at him, and he sidled over.

“They like their drinks?” John asked in way of greeting, jerking his chin towards his table.

“Joji wasn’t pleased with the daiquiri, but Joji isn’t pleased with most daiquiris. The rest of them aren’t overly picky.”

John realized this was the best he was going to get out of him, and grabbed nine glasses to pour the beer. Max’s words rang in his ears. Wincing on the inside, he smiled brightly and asked, “Do you all surf together?”

Billy dragged his gaze from the opposite wall over to John, caught between irritation and disbelief. After the silence got strained, he grunted,  “Yeah.”

 _Thanks for the wonderful advice, Max_. John filled another glass and tried again. “Any tips for a beginner?”

Billy didn’t blink. “You want to surf.”

“Why not?” John replied. It was meant to be rhetorical, but judging from the expression on Billy’s face, there were plenty of reasons why.

He fixed him with a blunt look. “You’re a late start.”

“I’m barely thirty.”

Billy lifted one of his beaded necklaces with his thumb. “I got this after my first surf competition in San Diego when I was seventeen.”

John swallowed and almost overflowed the glass he was filling. He set it aside and kept his expression bordering on charm. “Have you ever considered that you’re just an early start?”

Billy didn’t see fit to grace him with a response. He snagged the tray with the beers and hoisted it. Casting what John supposed was Billy’s version of a caring camp-counselor-like look at him, he warned, “They’ll eat you alive.”

“Who?”

Either he was already out of earshot or he was being ignored, but Billy didn’t clarify. John watched his tall head bob over the tables until he finally looked away, a spark of determination growing in the pit of his stomach. Since he’d gotten to town four days ago, he’d been to the beach once, for a fifteen minute walk in which he dipped his toes in the surf and carried on. The idea of surfing was neutral, had been neutral. Now he suddenly had to do it, if just to rub it in Billy’s face.

John did a lot of things just to rub them in people’s faces.

Max came back a while later, after John had served a few more customers and received one compliment on his bun from a young girl who was sitting at the bar with her parents. She grabbed a drink for one of her customers and checked up on John in the process. In the evening heat, which wafted in through the open door, she had twisted her shirt up in the back so that her midriff showed above her skirt; sweat dampened the skin at her temples. John was even more thankful for his position behind the bar, in large part because of the ice-maker humming by his knees.

“Did you build any bridges?” she asked.

“Something like that.” He turned to her, a question he couldn’t put to words on his tongue. He gave it his best shot. “Is he always so. . . .”

“Straightforward?” Max supplied. “Billy likes to think. This is why he manages them, and why they allow him to do it. Not a leader, _peut-être_ , but a man who can lead when it is required.”

“If he’s not their leader then who is?” John thought he’d like to see the man who could keep both the rabble and the steely-eyed Billy in line.

“I would not call him a leader,” she said, contemplating. “There is a man they will listen to, however, even above Billy. The Captain.”

John frowned. “Doesn’t his name rather imply leadership?”

“Influence does not equate control,” she told him, intentionally vague. “Vane’s Rangers are loyal to him, follow him without question, because he is one of them. The Captain is something quite different.”

“That doesn’t explain anything,” he complained.

Max finished preparing the drink for her customer and started off. “Take your break, John. I will take care of the bar.”

John blew out his cheeks, wanting to protest further but also grateful for the invitation to rest his feet. He ducked into the kitchen to snatch a bowl of soup before Idelle could stop him and retreated to the office, where he proceeded to watch cheesy television on Netflix for the next thirty minutes in relative peace.

Well, not for the full thirty minutes. When he first sat down to the computer, he executed a quick search instead: “board shops” + “la morsa beach”. The first link was to Bones’ Boards, which looked promising; he copied the address on the inside of his forearm and decided he would go the next morning. He took a moment to consider what he was signing himself up for. Surely surfing couldn’t be too difficult. John, while not a very elegant swimmer, had always had good balance, which seemed to be the main trick behind surfing as a sport. Paddle out, turn around, wait for the wave to carry you.

He nodded to himself. At worst, he could probably find a local to teach him. Max surfed on occasion; maybe he could convince her to help (though the thought of Max witnessing his first steps was a little embarrassing). Either way, he was starting to see _not_ surfing as missing an opportunity, and John didn’t miss opportunities.

Surf plans set, he turned to Netflix until eight-thirty rolled around and he had to get back to the bar. He slid out of the office discreetly and felt his bun beginning to come apart, though his primary focus was on determining whether Billy and his men were still around. His eyes skimmed over the restaurant to see that their table now seated an older, cleaner group of people. In fact, in the time he’d been on break, many of the tables had changed occupants. The bar was no longer needed to seat people as tables opened up around the room. He relaxed a little knowing he could just clean up without signing himself up for another sport he’d never tried before.

Max was cleaning up the blender when John walked over to her. Without looking up, she said, “There was a nice swell.”

“What?”

“That is where the Walrus men went.” At John’s still-confused look, she reiterated, “Billy and the others. One of his men came in and dragged them all out after him.”

John felt the beginning of a headache. _Surfers_. He rubbed a hand over his face, his voice muffled as he said, “Tell me they at least paid their bill.”

Max fluttered her hand as though John’s preoccupation with getting paid was ridiculous. “Of course I made them pay their bill.”

He sucked in a deep breath and leaned against the back counter. With that concern out of the way, he was able to address the second of his questions in peace. “Why are they the Walrus men?”

“You speak Spanish, you should know,” Max said, indicating her own knowledge of the translation of La Morsa.

“Aren’t all the men in this town Walrus men, then?”

She gave him a sidelong look like he was being obtuse on purpose, which, for once, he wasn’t. “That is simply not how it works, _mon cher_.”

With that entirely unsatisfying answer lingering in the air, she shoved three shakers dripping with drink into his hands and brushed past him. “I am on break. If you need me, try to find a way so that you do not.”

John grimaced at the shakers, then headed over to the sink. Max was supposed to be his safe source of information, the one who wouldn’t go around making fun of him afterwards (like Idelle) or making fun of him to his face (like Billy). She was being less than helpful - though, it being opening night, he didn’t hold it against her long.

Clean shakers in hand, John spun to face the front counter, and nearly dropped them when he saw there was someone sitting at the bar. He made a short, surprised sound. Needless to say, the man definitely heard him. He looked up from the coaster he was fiddling with and locked his sea-green eyes onto John, who was trying very hard to keep the slippery shakers from falling.

He quickly set them down beneath the bar, breaking eye-contact for only a moment and allowing his signature wide grin to grow on his face. Hoping that if he acted casually enough, the man would forget that he heard the noise he’d made, he said, “Is there anything I can get you?”

“A man,” came the response. John was struck speechless, trying to figure out if he'd heard him correctly. This was probably a good thing, because the customer went on to clarify, “I’m looking for Billy. He was supposed to be here.”

John scoffed and hooked a towel over to start drying the shakers. “Would that be the Billy who insists on subjecting the rest of the town to the sight of his bare chest at all times?”

“The same,” the man replied, John’s weak attempt at humor having no visible effect on him.

“He took the men down to the beach. Apparently it’s a good time to go surfing.” John finished with the shakers, not even realizing how he was leaning forward until his palms hit the bar. It was those eyes; something about them drew him in. He had to pull himself together. He cleared his throat and plucked the coaster from the man’s hands under the pretext of preventing him from damaging it.

The man’s gaze followed his hands as they tucked the coaster back under the bar, then abruptly moved off as he got to his feet. Under the bar lights, John noticed that what he’d previously thought was a tan was actually an extreme quantity of freckles, all over his shoulders and the bridge of his nose. Out of nowhere, John had the sudden desire to see what he looked like under his white tank top, just to see if the freckles covered more of him.

He _really_ needed to get a grip.

Pushing off from the bar, he quickly asked, “Why are you looking for him?”

“I’ve got his keys.” He offered no further explanation, and didn’t seem to care either way how it sounded to John.

He could feel the conversation slipping away from him and stepped out further from the bar. “Are you certain I can’t get you anything? Surely there's something that piques your interest.”

John was about to pull out the menu, but the man pinned him with a hard look. His eyes slowly traveled down the length of him, sending odd sparks shooting through John’s veins, before his gaze leisurely came back to his. For a moment, John just stared at him, waiting for an answer or for the words to return to his head - any words, any words at all would do.

After what felt like an eternity, the man blew out a short breath through his nose, almost a laugh, and looked to the door. He left before John could stop him, keys jangling in the pocket of his board shorts. The instant the door closed, John sucked in a deep breath, suddenly aware that his heart was racing.

He barely took the time to scan the restaurant to make sure no one was in dire need of help before he burst into the back office to be greeted by Max’s unimpressed gaze. She set her quinoa salad aside and said, “I told you not to interrupt my break.”

John wasn’t listening. He pushed the hair out of his face, finding that his bun was falling out. “Who the fuck is he?”

“Who?”

“The man with the eyes and the - the hair and the keys,” he let out in a rush, hearing too late how flustered he sounded. But he wasn’t flustered. Was he? John didn’t _get_ flustered. He got thrown, and he steadied himself again. It was just taking a little longer this time. He tried again. “Taller than me, ginger, green eyes, freckles, has a beard. He was looking for Billy.”

Max seemed to be enjoying the interruption despite herself. Her eyebrows shot upwards as she muffled a laugh. “Are you speaking of the Captain?”

“ _That’s_ the Captain?”

“Otherwise known as James Flint.” Max watched as John carefully regulated his expression. Within a few seconds, he was back to his normal, affable self. She picked up her dinner again. “Am I to assume you met him?”

“If you call talking to him for a minute and failing repeatedly to get him to order anything ‘meeting him’ then yes.” John retied his hair then put his hands on his hips. “I don’t think he liked me very much either. Why does no one in this town like me?”

“You are not a very likable person, _mon cher_.”

Her smile softened the remark, even as they both knew that wasn’t strictly true: John was very good at making people like him under normal circumstances. It just wasn’t necessarily the real John that everyone liked. John took her comment in stride and said, “I guess I’ll just have to make them like me, then, won’t I?”

Max looked at him dubiously. “And how do you plan on doing this?”

John grinned. “Surfing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let me know what you think!


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